Our Collection

We hold an extensive collection of  newspaper scrapbooks, from a variety of newspapers, from 1947 – 1990s.  We also hold various other letter books, including carbon copies of personal letters sent by the Town Clerk from the 1960s to the 1980s and listings of local people who were office bearers in Friendly Societies in the early 20th century. To date we have indexed 27 books, comprising nearly 20,000 entries.
Click here for Scrapbook Index A-K      Click here for Scrapbook Index L-Z
Scrapbook index series 2

We have compiled an  index to local residents diagnosed with infectious diseases, including influenza, from 1914 to 1927.  This index can be seen here:  Infectious Diseases Reports 1914-1927

We have compiled an index to material found in Nunawading Shire Council correspondence files held at the Public Record Office, for the period 1913 to June 1927.   It covers a wide range of material, including resident’s complaints/ requests about various public health matters, applications for business licences and, and for a few years, lists of players at various sporting clubs. More details from 1925 have been recently added.  The index can be seen here:    Correspondence 1913-1927.2

This index is of Council employees from the period 1862 to 1927.  The basis of the index was a list compiled many years ago, which recorded employees and sometimes gave their salaries.  To this we have added names and details of other employees and of applicants for employment, found in Council correspondence files from 1913 (the earliest surviving) to 1927.  This index can be seen here: COUNCIL EMPLOYEES

We have also indexed the three Property Sales Registers we hold for Box Hill, Burwood, and Surrey Hills, and which cover the period 1922 to 1926. These registers record the vendor, the location of the land, the purchaser and their address and the date of purchase.   Click here for the Property Sales Register  Use the ‘Control and F keys to search the document.

In 1934 the signatures of local school children were collected into a book, which was placed in a time capsule behind the foundation stone at the opening of the town hall the following year.  The book was retrieved in 1985, at the 50th anniversary celebrations of the opening in April 1935 and is held within Council.  The Society possesses a photocopy of the book, which has now been indexed:  Click here for this index.

In September 1939 the State Emergency Council requested all municipal Councils to establish ‘some machinery for protecting the civilian population in cases of emergency’, ie war and/or invasion.  The Society holds a unique set of cards, detailing locals who volunteered to be part of this service; an index to this material is now available here: Box Hill Emergency Council  

As part of the research for Heritage Week 2026, and its theme of On the street where you live, we have collated, in street order, a listing of people who were involved in the dog world from 1932-1970, either as breeders, show judges, or club office bearers.  Check out this index to see how noisy your street was!  Dogs and Dog Breeders

As part of the research into our book Street Wise The origins of street names in the former City of Box Hill we have downloaded and printed out hundreds of paper titles.  These old titles show not merely the owner of the property at a particular date, but what subsequently happened to the land – whether it merely changed ownership, or whether it was subdivided into smaller areas, thus creating new titles.  An index to over 11,000 entries of people and companies, listed in nearly 700 pages, has been prepared and is now available.  It has been separated into 3 sections to enable easier downloads.  Part 1 covers A to Fre (download here).  Part 2 covers Fre to Pay (download here).  Part 3 covers Pay to Z (download here).  Entries can be viewed in our premises any Tuesday between 11am and 4pm.

In 2020 the Society was gifted a wonderful collection of pen and ink sketches of local properties.  The works were completed by artist Margaret Picken between 1983 and 2005, when she was commissioned by various real estate agents to produce illustrations of houses that were for sale.   Indexes to the material can be viewed below; copies of the images are free to members, with a small fee asked for non members.
PICKEN HOUSE SKETCHES.Box Hill/Mont Albert         PICKEN HOUSE SKETCHES.Burwood

While we encourage visits to our Rooms to view our records, we can provide scanned images upon request of anything found in our online catalogue and indexes.  Click Here to get details of our charges and payment methods.